Goals – Sam Van Designs

One month down! Progress was made – much more to go.

Goal #1 – Regular exercise

I started out strong but might need to adjust for later working hours during these first few months. I exceeded 10,000 steps 12 days this month and averaged 8,175 for the whole month. Going to try to get that up to an average of 8,500 for February.

Goal #2 – Attend weekly Weight Watchers meetings

Made it to 3 out of 4 Saturday meetings in January – I’ll take that!

Goal #3 – If I bite it, write it

This one was bad – only three “blue dot days” this month (that means I tracked and stayed within my points range for the day). Shooting for at least 10 blue dot days in February.

Goal #4 – Run a 5k

I’m not really a winter runner – so this will be more of a spring/summer goal. I did sign up for a “secret” summer 5k. More to come on that…

Goal #5 – Quarterly spending freeze

Totally nailed this one! No craft or clothing spending in the month of January for me (and oh boy let me tell you there were temptations – I’m looking at you Hero Arts monthly kit that is now sold out!).

Goal #6 – Monthly budget tracking

All expenses are uploaded and categorized in Quicken for January. Cash flow was positive (which is good since we had a high entertainment expenses for the month – more on that later!)

Goal #7 – Participate in a few craft shows during the year

This will happen later in the year but I am planning on a neighborhood “vendor fair” at our development community center in March so I’ll need to spend some time preparing for that in February. Need to do a little research on shows but I’m thinking about a potentially different direction with this. I’ll share once I figure it all out.

Goal #8 – Declutter the house

I’ve decided to try to tackle one area (small or big) each week so I’ll keep a running list here to see how I do (a little short for January):

January – Holiday decorations, kitchen cabinets

Goal #9 – Date nights

My husband and I are both turning 50 this year! So my gift to him was a fun event planned for each month of the year (paying for things ahead was what blew up the entertainment budget for the month!). So hopefully I’ve guaranteed success for this goal! Our January night out was to Main Event for dinner and bowling to celebrate his birthday.

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Goal #10 – Tobii modeling

Still trying to find my way around this one! Goal for February will be to get some more personal icons loaded up so we can talk about the people/pets we know a little easier.

Goal #11 – Spring break vacation plans

Flights, Clearwater hotel and accomodations for our dog are all booked. Just need to decide on an Orlando hotel and rental car. Plus we now have a super cute seashell themed countdown in our kitchen! Less than 80 days!! I’m just going to keep this picture here all winter:

Goal #12 – Annual photo book

This one will be a month behind – goal is be to get all of our January pictures uploaded and pages/stories done by the end of February.

Goal #13 – Continue Finn training

We signed up for a Beginner Rally class at Fortunate Fido this month. It’s actually going really well!

This is the “relax on your mat with a Kong while the instructor talks” portion of class – possibly Finn’s favorite part!

Goal #14 – Blog up and running

Eleven published posts for the month of January! I do really need to figure out a way to organize all of this better! Sticking with the “at least one post a week” plan for now.

Goal #15 – YouTube channel

Holding on this one until later in the year.

Goal #16 – Complete Kit & Clowder classes

I printed all the practice sheets for the nature class and plan to make a dent in them during the 30 Day Coloring Challenge at The Daily Marker this month. Check Instagram for progress!

Goal #17 – Read 4 books

Killin’ it! I’ve finished three books this month (one was about halfway done already but I’m still counting it!) I caught up with the last three books in the Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children series. I read the first book years ago and honestly didn’t realize there were more until I saw them at my daughter’s book fair at school (these are technically teen books). Loved them all and now I’m left waiting for the next one to come out!

Books read so far:

Goal #18 – Use the craft supplies I have

I know I’ve used some of my new supplies this month but I need to come up with a better way of tracking what I’ve used and deciding what I want to keep and what needs to go. Right now I have all of my recent purchases in a separate bin and the goal is just to use them and store them with everything else. Maybe the bin will be empty by the end of February!

Goal #19 – Contribute/mail more cards

I tried to start an ongoing card drive in a Facebook group for families that are affected by Rett Syndrome. People seemed very interested initially but when I posted a Google form to try to gather information there was very little response (it almost seemed like that post got buried somehow – I even had a hard time finding it). Need to figure out another plan for this.

Overall not a bad start to the year!

I’ve got plans for 2019 and I’m much better at actually achieving things when I make them public! My plan is to check in at least once a month to give a quick progress update. So here we go!

HEALTH & WELLNESS

The first group of goals are related to health and wellness. About two years ago, I successfully lost a significant amount of weight and exercise was a regular part of my daily routine. I can feel myself slipping back into old habits and I want to nip that in the bud before I find myself back in a place I never wanted to be again.

Goal #1 – Regular exercise

Right now this is going to look like me getting 10,000 steps a day. In order to make this happen, I’m instituting a “no YouTube unless you’re on the treadmill rule”.

Goal #2 – Attend weekly Weight Watchers meetings

I know they’re calling it WW now and they aren’t meetings (I think I’m going to “workshops” at the “studio”). Whatever. The accountability and support at those meetings are what really put me on the right track. I won’t freak out if I miss a week here or there but an average of at least three weeks out of the month will be what I’m shooting for.

Goal #3 – If I bite it, write it

This means getting back to tracking my food using the WW app. I’m going to start slow and tell myself to track 4 days a week in January.

Goal #4 – Run a 5k

A year and a half ago this would have been easy peasy lemon squeezy. Not anymore. I really hope I can exceed this goal but for the sake of keeping it achievable, I’m going to start here. I can always add to it later!

FINANCIAL

The next group of goals are financial. Let’s just say my spending has not been as controlled as I would like over the last year so I think a few simple things to focus on will get this back to where it should be.

Goal #5 – Quarterly spending freeze

For one month each quarter, I’m going to force a spending freeze on non-essentials for myself. I’m finding marketing tactics working way too easily on me lately. This is only going to apply to me, not the rest of the family. January will be the first month.

Goal #6 – Monthly budget tracking

Very much like food tracking, making myself aware of where my money is going will improve my spending habits. I’m a CPA, this one should be a slam dunk. But you know what they say about the shoemaker’s kids, right?

Goal #7 – Participate in a few craft shows during the year

Not sure if “financial” is the right place to put this, but I did two last year and they were fun and I made a tiny little profit. I have some ideas on how I would like to approach this and step one will be making some choices on which shows to participate in.

HOME AND FAMILY

Home and family is the next group. There’s nothing that really needs significant improvement here but these are things that can always use attention. Overall, I just want to appreciate the place we are all in right now a little bit more.

Goal #8 – Declutter the house

I find myself spending to much time maintaining the “stuff” in our house. I feel mentally calmer when things are sparse but that’s just not the normal state around here. So things we don’t need, need to go!

Goal #9 – Date nights

For a number of reasons, it’s been tough to find time for date nights over the last year. Making an effort to really plan and do better in 2019. Maybe once a month?

Goal #10 – Tobii modeling

This one is pretty specific but might be the most important one on the list. Our oldest daughter is non-verbal and after MANY years of fighting, she now has a device that is able to track her eye gaze and provide her a voice. It’s awesome but also overwhelming. Learning my way around it and modeling for her is the plan.

Goal #11 – Spring break vacation plans

As soon as we realized that the change in our normal school year calendar and a late Easter that would fall after the tax deadline made travel over spring break possible for the first time ever, we knew that was going to take the place of our regular summer vacation. I really want all the details worked out before the end of January so I can just happily countdown to our departure!

Goal #12 – Annual photo book

I’ve used physical Project Life for a number of years to document our family life with photos and stories. But truth be told I don’t think there is a single year that is actually finished. I’m going to use a digital approach this year and try to keep up so I can just print a photo book at the end of the year and call it done.

Goal #13 – Continue Finn training

Our ultimate goal for our lab, Finn, is to have him certified as a therapy dog in the next few years. He’s just shy of two and still has some adolescent energy to work out. I’ve fallen behind on regular training practice with him so I need a plan to get things back on track.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

The last group of goals are all related to my own personal development in some way or another. These are not related to my career (I have separate goals there that will remain private). I do have some pie in the sky long-term goals that many of these are related to but for now, I’m just looking to learn and relax doing things that I enjoy.

Goal #14 – Blog up and running

If you’re reading this, then goal accomplished! I find myself way too paralyzed trying to get things set up perfectly but I really just need to start somewhere and worry about the details later. The “running” part is going to be a goal of one post a week to start.

Goal #15 – YouTube channel

This is the scary one for me. But I really enjoy being a consumer of YouTube and would like to contribute something. My guess is this one will happen later in the year.

Goal #16 – Complete Kit & Clowder classes

I purchased a few online coloring classes from Kit & Clowder. I started working through them but the holidays caused me to not get very far. What I’ve learned so far was awesome so I don’t want to waste this opportunity.

Goal #17 – Read 4 books

This seems like a laughably small number of books but I’m going to just start with one a quarter. I’ll share information on what I chose and what I thought of it. It’s like a book club of one!

Goal #18 – Use the craft supplies I have

Remember that spending freeze goal? More than a financial goal, I also want to stop adding more to my craft supply inventory. I have plenty, more than plenty and too much is unused. I want everything I have to either be used this year or to find a new home.

Goal #19 – Contribute/mail more cards

Those of you that follow me on Instagram know that cardmaking is my primary creative outlet right now. So I have cards, and lots of them, waiting to be shared. I’m not looking to necessarily make money from them but to just send or contribute them. I have a few ideas about how to make that happen. The card drive we did for our oldest daughters birthday last year part of the drive behind this goal!

Well that really seems like a lot now that it’s all laid out! I’m reserving the right to modify these if something really isn’t working. Or to just say “nevermind” and consider something different for next year.

There are a few blogs I follow that share goals like this. Even if their goals are nothing remotely meaningful to me, reading about people making commitments to themselves and seeing their progress is really inspiring to me. If you’re doing something similar, please feel free to share in the comments!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

Sam Van Designs

Tag: Goals

19 Goals in 2019 – January Update

19 Goals for 2019